


The Loki You Know

by RecordRewind



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Young Avengers
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1522703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecordRewind/pseuds/RecordRewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While in his prison in Asgard, Loki receives an unexpected visitor, and gets some life advice he should totally trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Loki You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Loki's imprisonment in Thor: The Dark World, and between Young Avengers issues 7 & 8, while the team is chasing the Patri-not. As far as YA!Loki is concerned, his plan to take over Kid Loki's body and life has worked out just fine. I really hope this isn't too confusing.

There must be a commotion going on somewhere in the palace. Guards stroll across the the underground prison, checking every cell. They keep their distance from Loki's, coming only as close as necessary to confirm the seals are in perfect order. 

Loki ignores them. Sometimes he seeks petty amusement in staring at the guards until he manages to get under their skin, making them nervous or angry. Then he remembers how that was something he used to do to people when he was a kid. It often ended with people reacting, and with Thor too far to intervene, and eventually with no more patience for that as well. The memory makes Loki morose, so he refrains from doing that now. He sits, eyes focused on the book, one of those Frigga sent him.

The guards go away and silence falls around the dark corridors, but for the occasional exchange of angry shouts, or roars, among the prisoners.

Loki doesn't raise his eyes from the page when he hears soft footsteps. They approach, and stop right in front of his cell.

“Why, you must be my best-looking self yet. I do hope I resemble you when I grow taller.”

Loki looks up.

There's a kid beside the barrier. He's clad in black and green, a golden head piece keep his hood in place. He's standing with his hands on his hips, staring at the prisoner with a knowing lopsided grin. Loki keeps his expression in check, stopping a frown from furrowing his brow.

On the highest, simplest level, the boy he's looking at simply doesn't _belong_ there. Not as someone who dwells in another of the Nine Realms, not even as an alien. He feels like a wrinkle in the fabric of reality.

Deeper than that, though, Loki realizes that he knows him, and that's even more unsettling.

The boy's smile broadens from ear to ear.

“You get it,” he says, and nods.

Loki gets to his feet, walks to the limit of the cell so he can look down at the boy, who returns his glare with nothing but cheerfulness, though he seems to flash a bit too much teeth.

“What are you?”

“Interesting choice of word. It is telling, really.” The kid gives Loki a long, evaluating stare. He then tuts, as if he's finding that Loki doesn't quite measure up.

“Mmh. Indeed, slightly more attractive, but way less smart. Also, more caged. I believe I am the winner in this confrontation.” He raises his hands, palms up. “Alas, I have been in the same position as you, so I can sympathize. My advice? Consider a change in career. I did one, a while ago. Left my archetypical villain position, and went for archetypical trickster, and look at me now!” The kid twirls around, then he bows. “Did me a whole world of good. You know I speak no lies.”

“But you do.” Loki can't keep the note of fascination out of his voice. 

He knew of it, in theory. Of how this world he walked through was but a story, of which so many versions could exist. All the Nine Realms, and all the souls who inhabited them... they were lines in books, and the shelves held so many others.

He knew of it, but it's a different thing altogether to see the pages fold in front of his eyes. 

“Why are you here?”

“Just passing by. I am with fellows of mine, and it would be a terribly boring affair to tell you the whole story. Suffice to say we're running after somebody and we're doing a far amount of hopping from a place to another. We'll leave soon.”

“And you have met others. Others... like us.”

Loki narrows his eyes. There's something, beside the boy, he can't quite _see_ it, but it's there. A greenish brushstroke of light over the air, in a vague human shape. It looks weak, wavering, and for a moment Loki can't tell if the image exists on its own, or if it's something impressed on his own retinas.

“Other _us_. You can say it, my self. They weren't in better shape. I met some who reigned over here,” he makes a broad gesture. “And it didn't end well. That's why I recommend a change.”

“Yet, for all the happiness this change has brought to you, you're lacking as well.” 

The boy makes a face. “Oh. You noticed.”

“You are powerless.”

“I am not, actually. I'm still a pretty good sorcerer, thank you very much. But you're right, I had to... give up some of my qualities. It's temporary, I'll get them back. It was fore planned, as well.”

As he speaks, the trembling shape beside him becomes slowly clearer. Loki tries not to focus on it yet. He crouches down, so he can see eye to eye with the boy. “So tell me. _How_ did you manage that?”

The boy leans in, conspiratorially. “I suggest a heroic sacrifice, first of all. The occasion will surely present itself, they always do. Burn all the bridges, start anew, make yourself the ink and make the whole world the blank sheet for you to write on.”

“That's what you did? And you created a new existence for you and you only, away from all this...” Loki grimaces, clenches his fist. “...all this _filth_?”

The boy grins. “Oh, you are an angry one. I was as well, once. Yes, that I did. It worked well. Wondrously so.”

It would be blissful to believe that, Loki realizes. But he _knows_ he can't trust what this deforming mirror of himself is saying. He averts his gaze from the boy's, and finds himself looking right at him again. That is, at a perfect, though slightly translucent, copy of him, identical in everything but his gaze.

Loki can't look away.

“No regrets?” he asks, fascinated.

There are so many things Loki regrets.

The boy's smile doesn't falter.

“None at all.”

The phantom looks at him in sad derision. He points his finger at Loki in a gun shape, and mouths a _bang_.

Loki blinks, and the image disappears, leaving his ears ringing with the memory of a scream he never heard. There's only the boy looking at him, now. The boy who's smiling and lying to him. To himself.

“I might give consideration to your advice,” Loki says, smiling back.

“I would also recommend you leave this boring place. Head to Midgard,” the boy adds.

This time it's Loki who can't suppress a laugh.

“Here's something I wouldn't expect to hear from _you_. That pitiful hole? Are you sure you are who you claim to be? Or is the Midgard you come from a vastly different, more powerful place than the one I know?”

The boy blows some air. “I haven't visited your Midgard, but I guess it's very much the same. But you seek change, and arrogance won't take you closer to it. Change is the very air they breathe on Earth. Human lives are short, they flicker and burn. They _have_ to adapt fast, or they fail even sooner. It's... an inspiring environment.”

Loki looks dubious.

“Also, we are all characters in our own tales and you wouldn't believe how _good_ Midgardians are at spinning stories. Just wait until you start watching some of their serials...”

Loki raises an eyebrow, and the boy sighs. “Nevertheless, you will be thanking me.”

“Maybe I will.” Loki nods. “I do thank you for your words of wisdom, you have given me much to ponder.”

“It was my pleasure. And remember, you need change, but that doesn't mean you must stop being who you are. You just have to work a way around it. Change the way the world sees you, change your place in the world. You'll still remain--”

“Loki!”

They both look to the side, to see a young woman turning around the corner of the corridor, running. She has dark long hair, wears a purple suit, and wields a bow of unusual manufacture. 

“There you are!” She eyes Loki suspiciously, as she speaks to the boy. “I think half the army of this place is chasing us by now. We need to find the others, Chavez is getting ready to kick us through another dimension.”

“I always feel in danger of that being too literal,” the boy whines, and the woman rolls her eyes. He sounds and looks younger, way younger than he did moments ago, as he speaks to the woman, Loki notices.

The boy turns to Loki and gives him a small bow. “I'm requested elsewhere. So long, other me. Oh, if you eventually relocate to Midgard, remember to taste the sophisticated meal they call 'bacon.' You will thank me.”

As the boy walks away from the cell to join the woman, the greenish shadow flashes in front of Loki's eyes again, fastest than a blink, and Loki is left with the residual image of the phantom copy of the kid waving him good-bye. Or _see you again_. He was grinning.

For a long time after they are gone, Loki looks at the place where he saw the two images of himself. Eventually, he turns to the inside of the cell, sits down on the floor. Starts to wait.

-

“What were you doing, anyway? Giving bad advice to yourself?” Kate asks, as they walk away.

“Always.” Loki who looks like a kid smiles. Kate sighs.

“Well I hope you don't grow up to resemble him.” She can't help smiling a little. “He _did_ look like trouble.”

**Author's Note:**

> This would be a prologue of sort to my "The Many Drawbacks of Dating a God" series, since it is the first step in the path that will take Loki to the point he is there.   
> I'm having a lot of fun with the idea of Loki interacting with different versions of himself, so there might be more chapters added to this.


End file.
